Basics

The 25-year-old is now on his third European club, and his sixth club in all (four permanent, two loans).

He stands at 5'7" tall.

Nickname

His nickname is El Nino Maravilla.

Basically, that means The Wonder Boy.

He comes from...

Sanchez hails from Tocopilla, a city and commune in the Antofagasta Region in the north of Chile. It means "the Devil's corner".

Tocopilla is known as "the city of energy" and is also the birthplace of Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean-French filmmaker and playwright.

Under-20 star

Sanchez made his first splash in international tournament football at the under-20 World Cup in Canada in 2007.

That 24-team tournament was won by Argentina - for whom Sergio Aguero was top scorer (six goals) and named Player of the Tournament - but a Chile side also featuring Gary Medel, Mauricio Isla and Arturo Vidal finished third.

By that stage however he had already been signed by Udinese - and loaned to one of Chile's biggest clubs, Colo-Colo - and already had six senior international caps under his belt.

One of those caps, in May 2006, came against the Republic of Ireland at Lansdowne Road.

World Cup record

Sanchez has played at two World Cups (2010 and 2014), during both of which an all-action Chile side - first under Marcelo Bielsa, then under Bielsisme disciple Jorge Sampaoli - have played some of the most brilliantly, breathless football around.

In 2010 they qualified through the group stage with six points, after beating Honduras and Switzerland before losing 2-1 to Spain.

In the second round however, they were comfortably seen off by Brazil 3-0 in Johannesburg.

And in 2014, the story was remarkably similar.

They won their first two group games, beating Australia 3-1 and Spain 2-0, before losing their final group match to the Netherlands.